


A Quiet Reminder from the Brambles of Your Heart

by codenamecynic



Series: Little Things to Save Your Life [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 23:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19473976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: Ceitidh and Harper get caught in a storm and have a very awkward, very direct heart to heart. That mostly takes the form of swearing.





	A Quiet Reminder from the Brambles of Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bettydice (BettyKnight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettyKnight/gifts), [Fionavar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionavar/gifts), [Dakoyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dakoyone/gifts), [vhaerauning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vhaerauning/gifts).



> A story from the beginning of Katy and Harper's friendship, before they were really friends at all.

He's still getting the hang of traveling with another person. A tiny person with a short attention span and even shorter legs that require him to rein in his ground-eating strides, to pick the easiest path instead of the most direct, to pause and offer an anchoring hand over rough terrain that presents little challenge to someone of his height and frame.

Traveling with Ceitidh, basically, whose incessant rambling makes him want to stick daggers in both of his ears, and whose company he - illogically, _annoyingly_ \- has begun to more than tolerate.

Fine. To enjoy. Just a little. Fuck you, fuck everyone.

The weather is shit and he should have known better than to try to push their pace, thinking they could cover rocky, open ground and find shelter before nightfall. He could have done it alone, or just made do sleeping rough tucked into some dank hole, but his new traveling companion simply isn't suited for these kinds of endeavors. She'll freeze to death, or trip and kill herself, or somehow trigger a rockslide that will take him out too.

The hum of a renewed sense of responsibility is ever present, and motherfucking _irritating._

Whatever. The decision was made and it was wrong, but this is where they are now, on the top of a craggy bluff high in the hills with cold wind whipping at their clothes and rain driving into their faces. Ceitidh manages to keep up with his quickened pace, just barely, right on his heels like she's afraid to lose him in the storm. He is a little bit afraid of that too, like she'll stumble and disappear before he can turn around, but it's not like he'll admit it. No need to get soft on her, no need to encourage this - whatever _this_ is. At least no more than he has already.

He can't worry about that right now, he has to find them some shelter before she dies of hypothermia or some angry god smites him with lightning.

"Come on Ceitidh, keep up."

"Harper-"

"I said _keep up."_ His harsh tone cuts her off, has her sinking teeth into her chapped lower lip, and immediately he feels guilty about it. _Gods damn it._ "Just a little further, come on."

Her immediate grateful smile - grateful, fucking _imagine -_ distracts him with a sudden spike of self-loathing, and he doesn't immediately register the pause in the downpour.

He does, however, notice the hail the size of copper pieces clattering all around them on the stones as a chunk of ice bounces and hits him in the face.

_"Shit-"_

"Harper!" She sounds scared now, cringing at the crack of thunder so loud it sounds like it's coming up from the ground beneath their feet. Her voice rises in pitch. _"Harper-!"_

 _Crap._ He steps back, throws part of his cloak around her, over her head. "Okay, okay, you're oka- oh _fuck!"_

All jokes about vengeful gods aside, lightning strikes the ground to their left so close he can hear the rain sizzling and smell the ozone in the air. Ceitidh shrieks and he does the first thing he can think of and grabs her hand.

"Fuck it, time to go!"

The gods can punish him for his flippant assholery later. They race hand in hand, sliding on ice and slippery stones but her shoes, those same damn untravelworthy shoes, betray her and she slips almost out of his grasp. He picks her up without thinking about it, which is stupid and dangerous and will probably come back to bite him in the ass somehow, but she clings to him like a barnacle on the back of a sea turtle and together they make it to a rocky overhang he only sees because he almost runs them right over the edge of it.

It's barely big enough for the two of them, but it's out of the wind and rain, and it'll keep them from being struck by lightning. Probably. It's a little bit surprising that he even cares about that; two weeks ago and he wouldn't have. She's ruining him already.

She's also crushing his leg, all her weight on his thigh where she landed. Ceitidh looks glassy eyed and dazed, but she scurries backward as soon as he starts to move like she wants to get out of his way before he has a chance to shove her off.

Not that he would, he's not a savage. Mostly.

Either way she curls up against the stone wall of the overhang like she's trying to make herself even smaller, arms wrapped around bent knees to pull them up against her chest. She flinches when thunder rolls right overhead and then shivers, but somehow manages to give him a big beaming smile when he slides back to sit next to her, away from the water dripping over the edge.

What the hell is this. 

"You saved me." 

Oh no.

"Ceitidh."

She chews her lip. "I'm sorry I slowed us down. I know you're much faster than I am-"

_"Ceitidh-"_

"- _miles_ away from here by now if not-"

Well she's not wrong, but- 

No. "Stop."

She immediately shuts up. For a second. "I'm sorry."

"Stop talking."

It clearly costs her a great deal to do as he says, but she goes quiet and stays that way, lowering her head like she's going to hide how her mouth turns downward into a sad little frown. That isn't- at least, that's supposed to be-

 _Dammit,_ he’s supposed to try to be nicer.

In truth he's not even like this, he's not _mean_ or _unkind_ or any of these disparaging descriptors that now apply. He's never really liked himself, but other people used to. Some people. Sometimes.

Oh for fuck's sake. 

"Are you okay?"

Ceitidh looks up at him like he's just grown an extra head that spits fire. "What? Oh- yes! I'm fine. Much better now. Not even that cold."

Well that's an _obvious_ fucking lie. She's about to turn blue, far too pale, and clearly keeping her teeth from chattering through force of will alone, like it will piss him off if she doesn't manage to hide her suffering.

That's- 

Honestly, that's awful. The thought leaves the taste of ashes in his mouth, makes him a bit sick. He is not this person. He is not going to _be_ this person.

"Take off your dress."

The way she just looks at him makes his heart stop. That little flash of- something. It's not betrayal, it can't be if you're expecting it. It's something like acceptance, weary and sad, like all of this was a foregone conclusion, an undropped shoe hovering somewhere overhead. For an instant he sees his own heart writ large on her face, and he can't- he _can't._

She stops, startled, with her fingers on the laces of her bodice when he hastily backpedals, flinching bodily away from her. "Harper-?"

"Not like that."

"...oh."

Oh for the love of fuck. "I didn't mean it like that- like how you thought. I wouldn't. Not without an invitation, and certainly not without your permission." Which should be fucking obvious, but why flatter himself with thoughts of decency? She doesn't respond and he rips a hand through his hair, frustrated and upset. "Nobody gets to touch you without your say-so, okay? _Ever."_

And he's still not making himself clear; she's still trying fruitlessly to please him like he can even be pleased.

"...if we could still travel together, after…"

 _"NO!_ For fuck's fucking sake! I'm trying to give you a change of clothing, not fuck you in the fucking wilderness! Fuck!" He throws one of his shirts at her, not particularly gently, and turns his back, glaring hard out over the valley in the distance, at the- trees. And such.

This is the worst and so is he. He hates everything about this. Himself especially.

Eventually he can hear her shuffling around, can hear a great flopping sound that must be her soaked dress hitting the stoney ground. There’s nothing sexy about it.

"Okay," she says and reluctantly he turns around, finding her again with her knees tucked against her chest, just this time with her skinny bare legs hidden under the fabric like a misshapen tent. 

It- it's not cute, it's _not._ It's cold and wet and he's in a shitty mood, there's no call for anything to be _cute._

This is awful and he wants no part of it. What he does want is to curl up in his cloak with his back to her and just go to sleep until the rain stops, but this whole thing is his fault anyway and he might as well just-

Fuck it, he doesn't even know.

It's an unwieldy arrangement, tucking one of his blankets around one side of himself, wrapping over it with his cloak to protect it from the rain, moving awkwardly to put his back to the wall in this space that is not quite adequate for someone of his height. Ceitidh watches him wrestle with the layers of fabric like she has no idea what he could possibly be doing, and then blinks at him when he turns to her.

He shouldn't even bother with this, but he's come this far. "Well? Come on."

"I don't-"

"Look, if you want to freeze that's your business, but-"

"Really?"

The gods are truly testing him. _"Ceitidh."_

It all seems sort of unfair, like someone deliberately put this sad girl child in his way to make him feel like shit about his life and all his choices - as if he needed any help with that. And that 'someone' was definitely Ceitidh, following him around like an imprinted puppy, constantly getting underfoot. Still-

The slow, tentative way she shuffles toward him pulls at something soft hidden at the bottom of his calloused heart, something that hurts like recognition. She looks like she expects to be told in the last moment that it was all a ruse, a cruel joke, that maybe he set all of this up to test her just so she could fail. Like maybe she expects him to make fun of her. Or do worse.

Only it's not very fucking funny, is it? He doesn't feel like laughing. In fact, when he finally coaxes her to sit down with her back against his chest, he's hot and angry. It feels right somehow, like this is something he _should_ be angry about; to be righteously and thoroughly pissed at whoever and whatever made her like this, made her feel this way. Some of that is him, his shitty behavior, he'll own his part in that, but that can't be all it is. There has to be something more.

It feels more familiar than it should.

Irritable, he drags the blanket over his legs and her lap, and then draws his cloak over it. He can feel her shaking, quietly, subdued, where her back presses against his chest - just lightly, like she's afraid to lean into his warmth.

He prays, again, that this isn't something permanently damaging. She's much too young for him and sex is the last thing on his mind, and- gods damn it, he's going to have to _say_ something about it.

"I'm not going to- _do_ anything to you." Yes, because that's comforting. "I just thought you might not like to freeze." 

Yes, that's it, make it sound like it's _her_ fault somehow, that's just great. This is so stupid.

"I should have known we couldn't beat the weather. It was my mistake. I shouldn't have pushed so hard."

"Oh… it's okay! It's not really so bad, it's even kind of cozy in here! Um, now, with the blanket, and-"

He has no idea what to say to any of this, and it's almost like she can tell. 

"The view is nice?"

He laughs, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, and it scares them both. There's a moment of tense, awkward silence, and then Ceitidh laughs too. Just a little stifled giggle of a thing, like she's not sure she's supposed to, like she'll get in trouble. But she also leans back with her full weight against his chest like she's forgotten why she hadn't, or is suddenly very brave. He opts not to say anything, just casually adjusting the wrap of the blanket around her like he's repositioning his arm.

Very natural. Not suspicious. Fucking stupid.

He shouldn't dwell on it, but of course he does. He's far too sober for brooding but it's not like he's going to sleep. That doesn't stop her at all however; the next thing he knows, she's making those quiet snuffling sounds that are almost but not quite a snore, her head tucked into the crook of his shoulder.

The blind faith alone- she ought not be so trusting. So forgiving. So obviously in need. The world is cold, callous and cruel; it sees all of these things, picks at them like a hole in a sweater. He's watched enough unravel in his life that it scares him. For her. For both of them. It's just too easy to like this, to get used to this, and he just isn't sure he can do this again. Let himself care about more than the next moment, the next coin, the next fix, the next fuck. Isn't sure he's worth it.

But she might be. 


End file.
